Global piracy activity is on the rise. The region around the Horn of Africa experienced a tenfold increase in piracy in 2009 and 2010 relative to 2008 despite increased effort by European Union (EU), NATO, and U.S. Naval forces.
It is estimated that piracy costs the U.S. maritime industry between $1 billion and $16 billion per year. The U.S. Department of Transportation Maritime Administration outlines several economic impacts associated with enhanced piracy activity around the Horn of Africa. These include the fuel and personnel costs associated with rerouting ships via the Cape of Good Hope, as well as the opportunity costs associated with increased transit times. For ships that choose to transit through high-risk areas, there are increased insurance costs for operating in an area with high piracy activity, costs of additional security, and costs of nonlethal deterrent equipment. In addition, there are national costs associated with increased naval activity to protect shipping in high-risk areas.
Commercial activities are not the only casualties of piracy. Piracy also threatens humanitarian aid efforts around the Horn of Africa. For example, the U.S.-flagged and crewed MV Maersk Alabama was en route to Somalia to deliver food aid when it was boarded by pirates. There is also concern that the money being paid in ransom for hijacked ships is being used to finance regional conflicts around the Horn of Africa and potentially to finance terrorist activities.
Agencies involved with piracy interdiction quickly realized that meteorological and oceanographic (METOC) conditions strongly modulate pirate activity. In 2009 the Oceanographer of the Navy tasked the Naval Oceanographic Office (NAVOCEANO) to develop a product that predicted and communicated the suitability of the environment for pirate operations in the Somali Basin. NAVOCEANO responded by developing the Piracy Performance Surface (PPS).
The PPS ingests operational ocean wave forecasts from the Wave Watch III model run at the Fleet Numerical Meteorology and Oceanography Center (FNMOC) and surface current forecasts from the Navy Coastal Ocean Model (NCOM) run at NAVOCEANO. The wave forecasts are modified by the surface current forecasts to produce wave steepness forecasts. These forecasts of wave steepness are indexed between 0 and 1 to represent the suitability of the conditions for pirate attack. This environmental suitability is blended with historical pirate attack information (90% environment, 10% attack) to produce the PPS product.
However, the PPS has many limitations.
First, although PPS predicts the suitability of conditions for a pirate attack, “suitability” is impossible to interpret or validate quantitatively. Only qualitative interpretation and validation is available (e.g. there are more attacks when the suitability is high). It does not provide any quantitative information regarding the probability of an attack that decision makers can use to assess the risk of attack and take suitable actions based on that risk.
In addition, the PPS is dominated by environmental information. However, environmentally suitable areas for pirate operations tend to be far too broad to be strategically useful (e.g. the entire Somali Basin is suitable for attack). PPS has a further disadvantage in that it does not include the entire set of environmental factors that may affect pirate behavior in its analysis. Because pirates tend to operate in small vessels, they are particularly vulnerable to adverse winds and seas. However, although PPS utilizes surface waves in its analysis, it does not utilize surface winds, and utilizes surface currents only insofar as they modify surface waves, but not from the point of view of how they impact pirate drift.
Moreover, PPS does not include intelligence information about where pirate activity is expected to be high. It only communicates environmental information that has been slightly modified by historical pirate attack information. PPS therefore does not provide focused information that can aid decision makers regarding where they should deploy their assets.
Thus, there is a need for an improved method that includes both intelligence and meteorological information in predicting the probability of a pirate attack in a particular geographical area.